Opaque Lucidity

In The Line Of Fire

We found out today that a friend of ours is going to Iraq or Afghanistan in the near future. If I had to choose among all the people I know, this would be the last person I would've chosen; not due to lack of will or ability, but due to career. I can't go into more detail than that.

Our conversation reminded me that, once again, I am far from the front. The sailor part of me, the part of me that wanted to go back into uniform after 9/11, is envious of our friend. I say that out of no sense of bravado or foolish patriotism. Regardless of what you think of our reasons for invading Iraq, we broke that nation and now we have to fix it. I don't have all the answers, but the one thing I'm sure of is that we have to give the Iraqi people a better homeland than what they have now. It is a moral imperative.

It's easy for me to sit here in a warm house in Indiana and talk about imperatives and the sacrifice that is going to be necessary in order to stabilize Iraq. The simple truth is that I have sacrificed absolutely nothing in this war. I get up, go to work, come home, do an episode of the podcast, and go to bed. No one's life is being saved here.

So, for the first time in a long time, I envy our friend. That makes me something---foolish, pitiful, delusional---I know not what.